Fault in 5.1 layer of Kooper, Al, Mike Bloomfield, Steven Stills - SUPERSESSION SACD

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DuncanS

DuncanS

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I thought I ought to start a new thread before the Poll gets taken over!

I suspect I have a defect on my disc. On the 5.1 layer on Track 7 " Season Of The Witch" about 3:34-3:25, all audio vanishes the Amp flicks from 5.1 SACD to Stereo then back to 5.1 and the music continues. Its not on the 2.0 layer.

Mine is No. 3437 which has issues (played on a Denon DBP-2012UD), Lizard King is Ok with No. 1952 (on an Oppo 83SE), Atrocity has issues with an unknown disc no. on an Oppo. Bob Romano with No. 2898 has issues.

So has anybody else seen an issue in "Season Of The Witch" with Ltd. Ed. numbers before or after 1952, 2898, & 3437?
 
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What if the problem disks are played through analog outputs rather than HDMI? Probably plays fine then right?
 
I have #4630. When I played it the first time, it did do what you describe. At the time, I just thought it was an issue with my Pioneer 563 as it's starting to show it's age.

I saw your post today, so I tried it and it played without a glitch.

So I guess right now that puts me at a maybe. I'll play it a few more times and report back over the weekend.
 
It seems to be only if playing the SACD using DSD. The error does not occur if playing as PCM.
 
I hope nobody minds if I go slightly off thread for a moment. My Thriller SACD, only on the Billie Jean track for the first thirty seconds, very noticeably skips while playing via HDMI on DSD. It plays fine in all of the other modes just like Super Session and all other tracks play fine in either DSD, PCM, HDMI or Analog. The thing about Thriller is that upon visual inspection of the music side of the disc you can see some obvious striations (funny looking linear patterns) on the disc about half way through the disc where Billie Jean would be. I am wondering if anybody else has experienced this or if anybody else could visually inspect their copy and see if any unusual patterns are apparent about halfway from edge to center.
 
jsulzinger said:
I hope nobody minds if I go slightly off thread for a moment. My Thriller SACD, only on the Billie Jean track for the first thirty seconds, very noticeably skips while playing via HDMI on DSD. It plays fine in all of the other modes just like Super Session and all other tracks play fine in either DSD, PCM, HDMI or Analog. The thing about Thriller is that upon visual inspection of the music side of the disc you can see some obvious striations (funny looking linear patterns) on the disc about half way through the disc where Billie Jean would be. I am wondering if anybody else has experienced this or if anybody else could visually inspect their copy and see if any unusual patterns are apparent about halfway from edge to center.
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Actually the two are related.

The Thriller SACD and DSD Download was mastered (by Bernie Grundman) with relatively high output levels. Some find that playing the Thriller SACD and the Stereo DSD Download on their systems can be challenging due to these high output levels. In some cases there have been reports of distortion with that SACD/DSD Download. And there have been requests by music fans to re-do both the Thriller SACD and the DSD Download because of this.

I asked Gus Skinas at the Super Audio Center about the Super Session SACD. He tested it this evening. Gus tells me that the Super Session SACD plays fine on his Sony SACD player connected via HDMI. But he also noted that Super Session, like Thriller, was mastered (by Bob Ludwig) with high levels. In the case of Super Session the levels are "very hot" but still within the SACD specifications. So the issues are similar and likely player and system dependent.
 
On the oppo 103d there is a setup function for dsd or pcm for sacd playback. My receiver decodes dsd so I know it is playing dsd or pcm.
 
bmoura said:
Actually the two are related.

The Thriller SACD and DSD Download was mastered (by Bernie Grundman) with relatively high output levels. Some find that playing the Thriller SACD and the Stereo DSD Download on their systems can be challenging due to these high output levels. In some cases there have been reports of distortion with that SACD/DSD Download. And there have been requests by music fans to re-do both the Thriller SACD and the DSD Download because of this.

I asked Gus Skinas at the Super Audio Center about the Super Session SACD. He tested it this evening. Gus tells me that the Super Session SACD plays fine on his Sony SACD player connected via HDMI. But he also noted that Super Session, like Thriller, was mastered (by Bob Ludwig) with high levels. In the case of Super Session the levels are "very hot" but still within the SACD specifications. So the issues are similar and likely player and system dependent.
Click to expand...

High output levels? That is rather vague. Do you mean ridiculously compressed to the point of clipping?
 
I don't know. On my system it doesn't sound over compressed at all. I think it sounds really great
 
I switched my Denon to output PCM via HDMI rather than DSD from SACD to my Pioneer SC-LX86 Amp. The disc plays through the troublesome zone.

I suspect that during Mastering the DSD stream hits over +3dB for longer than it should, and at a guess my amp goes into safety mode and blocks what could be a stream of full power High-Frequency junk which could destroy the speakers, it doesn't like high analogue levels and soft limits to stop the tweeters blowing. The DSD to PCM conversion in the Denon will limit the output frequency response due to the conversion.

The Sigma-Delta Modulators which are used to take analogue to DSD, are unstable (i.e. effectively oscillate) with high signal levels so typically use 5th order filters in a feedback or a feed-forward loop to supress this, this does limit fast transients however. So I suspect my amp sees something it doesn't like and thus blocks it. However, a lot of DSD streams are actually generated digitally from PCM, and I'm not 100% sure whether the algorithms used have the same issue. I might do some research!

All that said this is a fantastic disc, well worth the wait for.
 
DuncanS said:
I suspect that during Mastering the DSD stream hits over +3dB for longer than it should
Click to expand...

According to Gus Skinas at the Super Audio Center, he checked the 5.1 SACD tracks on Super Session with a VU Meter. The levels are "hot" but within the SACD spec. So the levels are high, but not overmodulated.

This reminds me of the days when Michael Bishop at Telarc put full range DSD sound effects on some of their 5.1 SACDs - with a bold warning on the disc that playing the disc at excessive volume could damage your speakers. Some people thought it was a marketing moment - vs. a serious caution - and apparently did blow out speaker tweeters, etc.
 
DuncanS said:
Atrocity has issues with an unknown disc no. on an Oppo.
Click to expand...

I almost never post here from home, so again I can't provide the disc number or the exact Oppo model...but following up with what others are saying, I am playing it via DSD over HDMI into an Onkyo. I guess I'll just need to turn on PCM conversion when I play this one. Or leave it on...I'm not convinced I could hear the difference. I had actually intended to try the disc in an older Oppo that will ONLY do PCM over HDMI to see what would happen, but it looks like this thread has supplied the answer.
 
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